Online marketing comes in many forms, but email just happens to one of the cheapest and most effective ways to get your message to the audience it needs to reach. Almost every internet user has an email address, so it is certainly an ideal medium to use for your marketing efforts. The possibilities are endless, but don’t think you’re the only one who has come up with the bright idea of using this channel as a promotional tool. It is used by companies big and small; senders with genuine intentions and those with ill intent. For these reasons, high volume sends are treated differently when traveling through the email system.

The SMTP Effect

On the surface, email definitely appears to be one of the simpler aspects of the internet and its many services. You fire up your preferred program, compose your message, click “send” and the recipient receives it almost instantly. Behind the scenes, however, there is a lot of technical stuff going on in the way of servers, clients and protocols. One protocol at the core of every piece of email sent is an internet standard known as SMTP.

Short for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, SMTP is essentially a computer language mail servers and clients utilize to communicate with each other. ISPs and email services like AOL, Gmail and Hotmail have SMTP servers for the sole purpose of allowing their users to send messages. However, while some give you the ability to send through a desktop client such as Outlook, others require you to use their web-based clients. Unfortunately, there is typically a limit on the number of messages you can send within a short amount of time, and this is why these applications are not suitable for the high volume sending associated with email marketing.

Webmail programs restrict sending for a number of reasons. For one, email providers do not want their servers bogged down with messages. The more messages sent out, the harder those servers have to work, meaning performance becomes an issue. Secondly, and most significantly: spam. When spam first became a problem years ago, most of it was actually sent through the local SMTP servers provided by ISPs. Today, any mass mailings sent from one of these servers will raise a red flag, which means that using a standard webmail client to conduct your email marketing will either result in your messages being sent to a spam folder or blocked entirely. In a worst case scenario, you could have your account suspended or end up on a blacklist.

Email Marketing Software Is the Solution

Webmail clients are sufficient for communicating with friends, family and associates, but if you are trying to reach a large number of people with your message, they will only lead to trouble. The good thing is that the trouble can be avoided by simply investing in a third party email marketing solution. With a professional email marketing software, you can rest easy by knowing that your campaigns are being deployed from a trusted server that will not raise any red flags. It is the most reliable way to ensure exceptional delivery rates and maximize your marketing efforts.